


Coral

by Wandering_Moose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Another AU fic from long ago, Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wandering_Moose/pseuds/Wandering_Moose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never sneak up on a Ruffiannihilator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coral

Being a soldier in the Empress's army was hard. Being on leave was even harder, because it was so difficult to leave the battlefield mentality behind. You just couldn't, those habits stuck with you no matter what. You could go off and murder the mailman by accident, or club your lusus in the face and use it as a human shield the moment you hear a loud noise. Different branches of the army came with different effects, but the worst was probably for returning Ruffiannihilators.

On the battlefield, Ruffiannihilators were taught to harness their strength. They were conditioned to harness their internal anger, and turn that rage into a berserker's wet dream. They weren't taught to be nice or gentle, they were taught and mentally conditioned to want to kill everything that they perceived as a threat. If something scares you, it's a threat. If something hurts you, it's a threat. Those rules go for everything in life. No exceptions, ifs, ands, or buts.

Bolsav Gospod had been back home for...how long had it been since the last conscription? Ages, probably. Or at least a few sweeps. You start young in the army anyway. He had started at the tender age of 8 sweeps, and now he was what, 18 sweeps old now? Damn, times just flies by. Truth be told, he had lost track of all the time he spent on leave and the time he had spent actually fighting, the days just blended together sometimes if he didn't really think about it.

His Ruffiannihilator instincts were almost always under control, but sometimes they slipped out. And when they did, it really didn't fare well. He was a very, _very_ strong troll, and whoever was on the receiving end of his blows had to be made of steel to not be hurt. Then again, he had dented steel before. That metaphor went down the drain fast.

After arriving home on a long leave (which was still going on, mind you), Bolsav had a literal blessing in disguise come to him. They had met at a coral reef, she was plucking colourful bits of dead coral from the seafloor, and he was trying to drown a landdweller above her. She had stopped him, and he had been righteously pissed at her for stopping his fun, because who even wants landdwellers around, but eventually he came to the realization that she was a calming influence on him. Orphis Lilica, his guardian angel, his pale crush, his moirail.

She kept him from lashing out and killing people, he kept her...well, he was just kinda there, like a trophy to show off or something. He was a good listener, mind you, but he didn't really have the knack for asking what was wrong. She'd come to him, and he could listen to her talk for hours. In fact, he had done that several times before. Listening was nice, and it gave him a chance to hide his horrible accent. He hated how he sounded, but Orphis seemed to like his voice. She had once described it as “water trickling over stones in a brook”, but he just thought he sounded...average.

He knew that every troll around had a different voice and/or accent depending on their class, location, and upbringing, but seadwellers seemed to always get the short end of the stick when it came to accents. Some of them couldn't even say certain letters right. It was a pain. He couldn't say a proper “th”, it always came out as a flat “t”, and his, in Orphis's words, “wubble-yous” sounded weird too. He even forgot words sometimes, but that was just because he was forgetful sometimes. Now, to him anyway, Orphis's voice was the one worthy of poetic descriptions, but we don't have time to talk about that now. Well, maybe we do. It was smooth, like water in a creek flowing smoothly in summer. There, we've filled most of the poetic bullshit quota for now.

He and Orphis had agreed to meet today, just to talk, and maybe eat something. Whatever she wanted, he usually went with. He wasn't the easiest guy to make friends with, but once you had his friendship, he would damn well be there no matter what. Perhaps the loyalty of a soldier had something to do with it. Or maybe it was just because deep down, even though he wouldn't admit it, he was lonely and just wanted a companion. Probably both. It was nice to have someone you could physically talk to, even though they lived in incredibly separate parts of the ocean. She lived on the seafloor, he lived in an immaculate cave near the surface.

He thought she was slightly odd, but he could deal with it. He assumed she was a violetblood like him, and she just masked herself to go among the lowbloods or something. Whatever, that was none of his business, back to the matter at hand.

Bolsav was floating near the middle-depth area of the ocean, and was just waiting for the time to change to exactly to 6:30 so he could head to the beach to meet Orphis. They hadn't seen each other in ages, and he missed her immensely. She wasn't on pesterchum much, so opportunities to speak were slightly rare. 6:30 sharp, excellent. He swam towards the surface, his webbed hands bringing him to the surface at what was probably nearly a record breaking speed.

He had a particularly colourful piece of coral in his pocket he had found, and he had kept it just for her. It was sharp, but she probably knew not to grab the sharp pieces. His mind was buzzing with fond thoughts of Orphis, of her and her beautiful hair, her gorgeous eyes, and her smooth skin. It seemed that deep seadwellers had softer skin than higher living seadwellers did. She was just so beautiful, she meant the world to him. Okay, maybe this relationship was mostly pale with flecks of red, but it was still damn wonderful.

He strode onto the beach, and ran his enormous webbed hands through his hair and horns. He wasn't particularly proud of how he looked today, but again, Orphis had no problem with him in any way. He ran a hand over the studs in his right fin and thought back for a moment, the jewelry on him was all from war spoils. The golden chains going from one gill to the next though, those were a gift for him from him. But the spoils jewelry, that was from a raid of a rebel compound. They had kidnapped some of the most high ranking highbloods around, and two squads of soldiers had been dispatched. Bolsav's jewelry was a personal gift from one of the subjuggulators who was rescued, and he wore it with pride.

While he was lost in thought, Orphis had slowly and quietly crept up behind him. She was a pretty quiet walker for a troll, most of whom trudged through and made as much noise as she pleased. Perhaps the anonymity came with the urge to be quiet and not noticed or something. Or she just liked potentially ending her life by sneaking up on trained soldiers with what was probably PTSD. It was probably the first option, though.

She stepped on a small piece of a broken shell, which crunched into the sand, and sent Bolsav into what could only be described as a frenzied flashback fueled rage. He spun around, grabbed her, and dove right back into the ocean with her. Orphis, being a seadweller, had no problem with this. Until she realized that Bolsav wasn't going to just let her go when he got deep enough. This was bad, this was very, _very_ bad. There was bad luck, and then there was this, which was a possibly life ending consequence from doing something stupid.

Bolsav wasn't quite sure where he was, he was everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. He was back in every single battle he had fought in, but he was also alone in his cave crying himself to sleep. He was fighting, he was relaxing, he was being tortured for information, he was everything and nothing at the same time. It was pure sensory overload.

He took the colourful coral from his pocket and drove the sharp parts into Orphis's gills, one at a time, and paid no mind to the blood around him in the water. He took his time dragging the coral from bit to bit inside each gill, the screams of his friend not doing a thing to distract him. He set the coral back in his pocket, and felt her convulsing in his arms. He pulled her close to him, and wrapped his enormous hands around her throat. He squeezed and squeezed, her thrashing not doing anything to deter him.

The water around them was saturated with blood, and to him, it looked like every single colour he had ever seen splattered on walls or floors or on his hands. Sometimes it looked like his blood, then he'd blink and it would change to a shade he had never seen. He didn't care, all that mattered was the struggling anonymous enemy in his arms. Only cowards let it happen, at least his opponent was worthy.

He had no idea how long he held his enemy there, but eventually their struggles slowed until they were as still (and as cold) as a statue. He blinked, and took a deep breath. It was all over, and he could see Orphis now. Problem solved. He looked up at the sky. Shit, he was late. It was at least 8:00 now. He glanced around at the water- wait, fuchsia blood? Only the Empress herself could have fuchsia blood! She must be injured and nearby. He kept holding onto his enemy's corpse while swimming around for a while, trying to locate the source of the fuchsia blood, but he found no source. Huh. Weird.

He swam up to the surface again, and walked out onto the beach. He was late this time, shoot. He'd have to apologize to Orphis when he saw her tonight. He dropped the corpse on the beach, that didn't matter now. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the coral to admire it in the light. It had been a gorgeous golden-red when he had plucked it from the seafloor- wait, why was it fuchsia? He didn't even know anyone with fuchsia blood.

It was at this point that he looked down and realized exactly where that fuchsia blood had come from. It was also at this point that he realized _exactly_ why Orphis was late.

He sunk to his knees, his pants scraping against the sand. That was his friend on the ground, with fuchsia blood oozing from her corpse's gills. He hadn't just killed the Empress to be, he had killed his _best friend_. He felt tears flowing freely from his eyes, the violet drops falling and leaving small splotches of colour on the sand. _He killed his best friend._ It just didn't add up to him, he had murdered one of the few people he cared about. He leaned down and fell over her corpse, and he spent god knows how long just _begging_ her to wake up. She couldn't be dead, she was just sleeping. He couldn't have done it.

For what would have been the first time in his life, he wanted his lusus. He had nobody truly left now, but them and himself.

He reached back and dipped the coral in a pool of water, before setting the now stark-white coral on Orphis's chest.

His best friend was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in..... what, 2014? And I'm posting it here. Because I can.


End file.
